Another Emmy™...
As part of the FOX5 News Team I was also awarded a 2004 Emmy™ for  Outstanding Achievement: Television News Excellence/Daily New Cast (Markets 1-25) — that's a total of 6. Update: Another best newscast Emmy™ in 2005, so the total is now 7.

Blimp Trippin'

One morning, several years ago, we did a live remote from the Blockbuster blimp for our morning show, Good Day Atlanta. Someone had to operate the portable transmitter, I always wanted to go up in a blimp, and RHIP ("rank has its privileges"), so I assigned myself that duty.

This is a photo of me high over Atlanta, in the blimp, holding the antenna for the so-called "PoleCam" system we used to go live from the blimp. (For those who care about tech stuff, it's a 1W 2GHz ENG transmitter with a small, hand-held pole-mounted directional antenna — the same system we've used for "RunnerCam," but with the antenna pointed horizontally.) (Yes, it was a lot of fun, and made great television. But I could have done without the last part of the flight! Our return to the airport was a bit bumpy, and I'm glad the gondola was equipped with those little bags. If you're a rollercoaster fan you'd have loved it. I'm not; I didn't.)

Most of our microwave ENG is done on the 2 GHz band. Television stations share a limited number of channels. We coordinate our operation through so called "Gentlemen's Agreements" and "Home Channel Plans." In most of the USA this coordination is done through the Society of Broadcast Engineers. And, since no one else was willing to do it, I'm the SBE coordinator for frequencies above 1 GHz for North Georgia. The Atlanta 2 GHz sharing plan is probably typical of what is done in most of the country.

Of course, the sharing plan must take into account the needs of all television broadcasters in a given area. In areas with more stations, like New York, stations may be primary users of at most one channel.

One of my interests is promoting safety for technicians, photographers, reporters, and engineers operating in and around television Live Trucks. See my 1997 Radio World article, On Remotes, Look Up and Live.

I'm also the webmaster for the Atlanta Section, Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.

How did I get into television? Well, like many others in TV, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. OK, seriously, here's the story. I've been an Amateur "Ham" Radio Operator since 1971, when I was twelve. Along the way I also earned an FCC First Class Radiotelephone Operator license, which used to be required for many jobs in television and radio broadcasting. When I was in Tucson, for college, I needed a job, and I'd always wanted to work in television. So I went knocking on TV station doors, saying "I have a license, can I have a job?" Ralph Turk, then Assistant Chief Engineer (later Chief, now retired) at KVOA-TV hired me for weekend master control, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Among the professional organizations to which I belong:

NATAS

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